Adulterous mothers and the effect on children

A reader wanted to know about the effect of an adulterous mother on children.  This topic is one filled with emotional angst and pain.

From a child’s perspective, an adulterous mother mother poses a major problem. As a child you want to love your mother and think the best of her, yet the ugliness of an affair makes that difficult. The ugliness of an affair is hard for anyone to face, whether adult or child.

Adultery presents itself as a defect that could have been avoided. No child wants to think of their mother whoring around with other men. At one point, many states had legal provisions where adulterous mothers had no rights when it came to children.

Children, even adult children want to think the best of their mother and may end up twisting truths or even outright lying to themselves about what their mother is doing.  They often feel wounded in terms of believing that something is wrong with them and their family.

Depending on the nature of the affair, the mother may become a highly sexualized figure in the life of the child. When mothers become sexualized in the child’s eyes, it creates a massive problem, which I do not have the space to address. Let’s keep this simple and assume that the mother has not become a sexualized figure.

The children learn that trust is conditional, especially in relationships. They become suspicious. They learn that what matters is appearances rather than commitments. From that emphasis on appearances, they learn ways of manipulating based on ‘intentions’ or appearances. The child learns early on that there are many ways of excusing improper behavior along with the importance of selfishness. They learn to look after #1. Self is more important that spouses, than children, than …anyone else.

As a child, you often feel ‘dirty’ from what your mother has done. This is natural for children to feel the pain of the parent’s issues.  The problem with an adulterous parent is that it is a dirtiness that won’t wash off with water. It clings to you, to your heart and your soul. Each time you look in the mirror, you may feel a tinge of that dirtiness. It is not just what your mother is doing, it is the total dousing of rejection they have given you as well. So you have a combination bath of sex, lies, and rejection all mixed together and poured over you.

If you ask the mother, she probably views herself as a ‘good mother’. She may even frequently buy gifts and dote on her children. This is her way of easing her conscience. She knows she’s been a ‘slut’ or ‘bad girl’, yet believes that her mothering is wonderful. In a twisted way there is the belief that her mothering outweighs her adultery.

She may even have joint game of ‘make-believe’ with her children to create the impression that she is a good mother. Since the child is desperate for attention, they play along, even though they fear that they will be rejected and cast aside as well. They want to be loved, yet the examples given by their mother totally corrupts the image of what love is and how male-female marriage relationships are supposed to work.

It was not by accident that Satan went after Eve in the garden. Satan knew that when the ‘mother’ is corrupted, it messes up the whole family.His plan worked. By tempting Eve, he messed up all the family dynamics. When mothers have an affair, it still corrupts the whole family. It is not by accident that the moral corruption forces have made mothers a major target with their emphasis on MILF’s.

Best Regards,

Jeff